Young 17-year-old centre should have been playing for Cheltenham College, but
instead turns out for Gloucester in defeat at Northampton

Ollie Thorley had expected to be playing for his school, Cheltenham College, against St Edward’s Oxford on Saturday, but instead he found himself alongside World Cup winner Mike Tindall at centre in Gloucester’s 33-6 defeat by Northampton.

At 17 years and 59 days Thorley became the youngest player to appear for Gloucester in the professional era; he is less than half the age of Tindall.

Thorley was thrown into senior rugby at the deep end as he has yet to play for Gloucester’s A team, but Tindall’s experience ensured that he did not look out of place.

Gloucester, who had flanker Matt Kvesic and fly-half Freddie Burns back from the England squad, were undone by two tries in five first-half minutes from wing Ken Pisi while they had flanker Matt Cox in the sin-bin.

Pisi first beat the cover defence to Dominic Waldouck’s deft chip and then raced clear from a sharp short-side break.

The second half was shapeless but Northampton sealed a bonus-point win with two tries on debut by replacement scrum-half Alex Day.

Northampton gave debuts to two sons of famous Saints families in wing Howard Packman, whose father Frank scored 178 tries in 376 appearances, and replacement fly-half Sam Olver, son of former England hooker John.

Packman made an important try-saving tackle on Kvesic and Olver converted the first of Day’s tries.

Apart from Kvesic and a second-half break by Cox, the biggest threat to Northampton came from a pre-match floodlight failure, but Northampton officials fixed the problem and avoided the threat of abandonment.

Exeter climbed up to second in Pool Two behind Leicester as a much-changed Chiefs side beat holders Harlequins 19-5 at Sandy Park.

After an opening half littered with 13 penalties and numerous errors the hosts took a 6-5 lead into the break thanks to two Ceri Sweeney penalties, while Paul Sackey scored a try for the visitors.

Sweeney added two penalties in the opening 15 minutes of the second half before he converted a try by Sireli Naqelevuki.